POLICE caught two young burglars by following a trail of footprints and discarded beer bottles, York Crown Court heard.

Adam Michael King and Adam Edward Wright stole two televisions, together worth £1,300, from a house off Hodgson Lane, Upper Poppleton, York, while three young children slept upstairs, said Jonathan Boumphrey, prosecuting.

Next morning, police alerted by the family found the trail of footprints and empty bottles leading from the house and tracked the burglars to a nearby house in Westfield Close when they found the pair asleep in the living room with the stolen televisions nearby.

King, 20, of Montague Walk, Upper Poppleton, pleaded guilty to burglary. Wright, 18, of Westfield Close, Upper Poppleton, had admitted a similar offence and was sentenced at an earlier hearing.

The Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, told King: “If you had not been affected by drink, you would not have thought of committing this offence. It is genuinely out of character. Everyone who knows you is astonished you are before the court.”

He gave King an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for two years on condition he does 150 hours’ unpaid work and put him under a nightly curfew from 8pm to 6am for three months.

Wright was also been given an eight-month prison sentence suspended for two years, with conditons.

Richard Minion, for King, said his client could remember very little about the burglary because of the alcohol he had drunk. He was full of remorse and shame for what he had done, which was his first conviction. He had had a reprimand as a youth.

Mr Boumphrey said King had told police he had got involved in lifting the television at the scene of the burglary and had then followed two other people carrying the television.

Both a 40-inch television worth £1,000 and a £300 19-inch one were recovered.